In fact, for families in the bottom 40% of earners, the cost has gone down even as the burden on the most affluent families has increased, Soltas writes. In other words, the burden of paying for college has grown a lot more progressive.

Hold on a minute, says Kevin Carey at the New America Foundation. In “The Net Price Myth” (Chronicle of Higher Education), Carey writes that, “The fact that many students pay substantially less than sticker price is significant, and deserves to be part of the conversation. But it shouldn’t give anyone false comfort about the magnitude of the long-term college-affordability problem.”

Carey says institutional spending is the real issue, particularly at private research universities, and that “the recent stability of average net prices is mostly a function of three temporary phenomena that cannot, under any likely scenario, continue to offset increased college spending in the long run. They are: price discrimination, federal tax policy, and Pell Grants.”

Who’s right? Both seem to agree that the real goal should be to reduce the cost of a college education. But you can decide for yourself; both pieces are well worth reading.

Comments (4 of 4)

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12:42 pm December 9, 2012

Matthew Ferrara wrote :

An easy way to drop the cost of colleges is to stop sending teenagers to college, on somebody else's dime (namely, mom and dad). Send them to work for five years, let them learn the value of money and the cost of hard work, then let them go back to college with a far clearer understanding of cost/benefit ratios. I guarantee within a few years, you'll see $50,000/yr tuitions to study literature or history drop like rocks, and unnecessary "elective courses" simply evaporate.

3:53 pm December 5, 2012

Saje Williams wrote :

Getting an education these days is like buying a house, except you get the mortgage but nowhere to live.

5:31 pm November 28, 2012

Walt Robertson wrote :

My hope is that internet based college education will replace traditional bricks and mortar institutions within a decade, dropping college costs by an order of magnitude. The cost/benefit ratio just isn't there anymore and institutions seem to be oblivious to value dynamics changing.